Do not start with me with this shit. Of course artists need to eat. I'm on the fucking internet essentially begging because I struggle with capitalism and the idea that almost all forms of employment force me to restrict my intellectual property, or assign it to someone else. Every time I'm forced to do it because the bank account is low I can feel it grinding down my soul. It is antisocial to prevent people from building upon my ideas (or any ideas). We should take every step we can to strengthen the commons. (see "Everything is a Remix"[0])

I dropped out of fucking high school and was homeless couch surfing in LA for years trying to break into steady VFX work, I don't think for a lack of skill/blood/sweat/tears[1]. I'm well aware artists need to eat.

The problem isn't technological progress, (jfc this is all open source!!! stability is doing god's work by undermining the value of ghouls who try to restrict access to these models for personal profit). It's certainly not that copyright is too weak in preventing people form building off the aggregate styles and work of artists. I learned style by fucking copying the masters[2]!! This is how art is supposed to work. The problem it's the disgusting economic/political system that has twisted copyrights and patents into a device to enable rent seeking for those who can afford to purchase/commission them rather than protecting the innovation and creativity that they were meant to.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc

[1] https://www.reddit.com/gallery/unqmux

[2] https://imgur.com/a/NDRWVj8

What about the artists whose art said artists used to train themselves and so on and so forth? How much do we owe the people we learn from?

So many artists copy/adapt Disney's style totally anonymously for example. Should they be paying royalties to Disney?

As a human being, if I browse DA and reference other people's work/styles while I muck about on a graphics tablet am I in the wrong?